Bill O'Reilly blows up at Laura Ingraham

4/2/13 9:36 PM EDT

Now here's a motley love triangle of right-wing punditry: Fox News host Bill O'Reilly got into a shouting match tonight with Laura Ingraham, a Fox News contributor and guest host on his own program, after she criticized his recent remarks about conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh.

Ingraham told O'Reilly that he was wrong to refer to Limbaugh as a bible-thumper last week in his remarks about same-sex marriage. (O'Reilly had said that gay marriage opponents needed to do more than "thump the Bible" if they wanted to win the debate.)

O'Reilly interrupted Ingraham almost as soon as she started speaking, insisting that there was no feud between him and Limbaugh. When Ingraham said that O'Reilly had unnecessarily insulted conservative Christians, O'Reilly snapped back: "Laura, I'm disappointed in you tonight."

"You are not delineating, you are still saying that I insulted Christians who believe in the Bible -- I did not," O'Reilly continued.

"Then why did you use the word 'thump'?" Ingraham asked.

"Because that's the way you get it across!" O'Reilly replied. "There are bible-thumpers and all they do is say, 'I object to gay marriage because God objects to it.' You don't win a policy debate in America with that.... You are criticzing me tacitly for using the word 'thump the Bible,' which is an accurate description of what people [do]."

"I don't think it helped," Ingraham replied.

"I'm not here to help," O'Reilly said. "Helpful? It was accurate and honest."

"All I'm trying to say is that some people took offense," Ingraham later said. "Don't get mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you, I'm disappointed," O'Reilly said. "Of all the conservative radio hosts, you have the most common sense -- of all of them. But you bought into this garbage... and I'm disappointed."